After Ellen Burstyn was nominated for 15 seconds in “Mrs. Harris,” the Emmys made a new rule that nominees require a minimum percentage of screentime to qualify. That new rule disqualified Debbie Reynolds from consideration for “Behind the Candelabra,” but unless I’m mistaken she had more screentime in that than Margo Martindale had in either of her Emmy-winning “Americans” appearances. We might need to extend that rule to guest acting as well. At the very least, it would force the “Americans” writers to give the genuinely great Martindale enough material to warrant continued nominations and wins.

Require voters to watch the episodes. Technically they do require that, but they don’t enforce it. Since voting is now done online, it should be relatively easy. Heck, I have apps on my phone that require me to watch an ad and won’t let me proceed unless I do. You could always cheat — click play, walk away for a couple of hours and then come back to vote when it’s done — but at least then you’d have to put some effort into cheating LOL. To make it more reasonable for voters in categories where there could be as much as 6 or 7 hours of material to review, it might be a good idea to edit the episodes down to just the nominees’ scenes, like the Daytime Emmys do.

Require voters to watch the episodes. Technically they do require that, but they don’t enforce it. Since voting is now done online, it should be relatively easy. Heck, I have apps on my phone that require me to watch an ad and won’t let me proceed unless I do. You could always cheat — click play, walk away for a couple of hours and then come back to vote when it’s done — but at least then you’d have to put some effort into cheating LOL. To make it more reasonable for voters in categories where there could be as much as 6 or 7 hours of material to review, it might be a good idea to edit the episodes down to just the nominees’ scenes, like the Daytime Emmys do. Anybody else have ideas for Emmy rule changes?

I like this idea.

As for me; I’ve always wanted them to allow acting nominees to prepare an collective version of all of their favourite work over the season in one tape.

I’ve always felt that one baity episode/not having one central episode and screentime issue was the thing that held the tape system from being perfect and was the reason Emmys are always get criticized. I absolutely despise TBBT and everyone involved with it, but there should have been at least a legititmate chance for someone like Bialik who was an actual supporting actress that have 4 minute screentime per episode, could beat someone like Janney. I disliked that it mosty ended up being more about the better character arc than the better acting.

Acting categories shouldn’t have been judged the same way as others. An editor cuts all the episode that he sends to Emmy judges so it makes sense that he gets to be judged by the entire thing. A director directs all the scenes, a cinematographer does all the lighting of his episode. But there’s no point watching Wright and Spacey going toe-to-toe for a 10 minute if you’re judging Michael Kelly’s performance.

And the heat they’ve been getting from acting categories was the reason they wanted to change the system, right?

So the least they can do, is to at least bring back the panels to non-acting categories. Especially the ones that are announced in Creative Arts. Those below the line people are probably the ones that get most negatively affected from these sweeps/bandwagons when a popular show wins everything along the way. And after watching Creative Arts ceremonies a few times, I’ve gathered that unlike the busy actors/directors/writers; those people are more willing to do this fair and square, and judge their colleagues work from their home. Technically they can still do that, but it’s hard to spend your long hours for watching random episodes of TV shows knowing deep inside there is no one else that does.

Is not like those panels got some great work done or has anyone forgot about that year that both lead from The Sopranos were snubbed and a bunch of weird nominees like that lead from King of Queens happenned? or the next year when something happen to The Sopranos tape and could not be screened and it was nominated anyway…or the stupid nomination and award of Sally Field for Bitches and Hookers (was that the name of that show?…i can´t remember?)

The samey-ness of repeat winners and name-checking the most popular contenders is reaching dizzying new heights.

Last year the top 3 winners got 14 combined main-category wins. There’s one other time this century that happened (with no year with 13), but half were from GOAT Angels of America – Arrested only got 3 wins that year so a non-majority.

While screen time being less shouldn’t exactly be a factor in a ‘Guest’ category, Margo’s screen time is way too low. There should be a rule regarding a limited amount of screen time an actor should appear in that’s employed to guest categories as well since we’re obviously never going back to the tape system, that seems like the most likely solution.

Let all English language shows, no matter their country of origin, if they appear on a U.S. broadcast, basic cable or premium cable channel, be eligible for Emmy consideration. It’s too late to help Continuum, but maybe their 78 nominations and 21 wins in various Canadian arts orgs (and the Saturn Awards here) will inspire the ATAS to do the right thing and stop screwing Canadian productions in particular.

1. If voting panels are brought back, make them larger and a more representative sample. 50-60 voters per category or whatever was always too small a number, and it shows in many of the repetitive choices made over the years. I’m for keeping the popular vote in place for now though. Two years (pending next week’s results) isn’t enough time to throw out the system entirely. But if this year’s winners are a carbon copy of last year’s, then some re-evaluating is in order, at least.

2. Bring back Individual Performance in a Variety Program! They can even break that down to Series (all the “SNL,” “Portlandia,” “IAS,” late night hosts) and Special (awards show hosts, musicians, comedians, theater, etc.), if necessary. This would also eliminate these contenders competing in the acting categories across the board (lead, supporting, and guest).

3. Install the 5% “Burstyn Rule” for the Guest acting categories in a nominee’s SUBMITTED EPISODE. Post-Martindale, I think this rule is actually coming in the near future.

4. Eliminate the “under 50%” SEASON ELIGIBILITY rule for the Guest acting categories. This has prevented enough people from deserved nominations over a numbers technicality. Rules are rules, true, but this one does a disservice to the spirit of “guest” acting in multiple examples.

5. Let’s have more transparency as to who’s actually voting! The Oscars are finally holding themselves accountable for their glaring insularity with new and diverse Academy members and restricting retired members from voting. It’s time for the Emmys to face that same level of accountability.

1. I agree with atypical’s #2, sort of – add individual variety series performance as a category. I think the current rule of “variety special hosts win if the special itself wins” is fine as it is, but if a show is not eligible for the comedy series Emmy, then it is not eligible for comedy series acting, directing, writing, etc. Emmys either.

2. Get rid of the “must be a winner” rule for Areas, and lower the winning requirement back down to 2/3 or 3/4. IIRC, the whole point of Areas stems from Rod Serling’s “either something deserves an Emmy or it doesn’t – you shouldn’t punish a deserving entry just because it wasn’t the best that year, and shouldn’t reward an undeserving one just because it was” experiment in 1965. Nobody seems to have a problem with juried awards being allowed to have no winner (as happened this year with Motion Design).

3. Either make Choreography an Area, or go back to having it as a “true” Juried award and get rid of having five announced nominees; if the screening panel wants a different number in the final judging, then so be it. (If it’s my choice: make it an Area.)

As for “make everybody watch the nominated episodes before being allowed to vote in a category,” how do you enforce it? The only way I see, other than making voters attend screenings (but isn’t the whole point of “at home judging” to prevent requiring this?), is to have the episodes online, but every few minutes, the episode pauses, and the viewer has, say, 30 seconds to enter a number that appears on the screen (to prove the person is actually watching and doesn’t just have it running in the background), or it is treated as the person not having watched the episode.

And here’s one that’s not so much a rules change as it is a production change; if there is going to be a one-hour “red carpet” show, include the speeches for Guest Acting and Reality Host from the Creative Arts ceremonies in it.